


Of Great Price

by MembraneLabs



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Pearl's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3765421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MembraneLabs/pseuds/MembraneLabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Pearl! Pearl!” he yells, jumping as he runs towards you. He is five years old, and still lives with Greg. His face is flush with pure joy, his clenched hand in front of him, knuckles white.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Great Price

“Pearl! Pearl!” he yells, jumping as he runs towards you.He is five years old, and still lives with Greg. His face is flush with pure joy, his clenched hand in front of him, knuckles white.

 

“Yes, Steven,” you respond once the unceasing chorus of ‘Pearl Pearl Pearl’ gets closer. You had been stacking your thoughts in orderly piles based on priority. His voice sends the piles crashing, and a bubble of annoyance rises within you. You sigh, and quell it. He’s only a child, whatever that means, and it is...nice, to have someone so excited to see you.

 

“Pearl!” bursts forth once more from his lips as he finally stops in front of you. He pauses to catch his breath, dripping with sweat from the run and the summer’s heat. His bare legs are covered in smudges. You are pretty sure that’s ketchup on the corner of his mouth. You try not to crinkle your nose. Amethyst might think sending him to his father to get hosed down in a water fight is enough, but you might have to step in and make sure he gets a proper bath.

 

Children are _exhausting_.

 

“Yes, Steven,” you say again.

 

He holds up his clenched hand. He bites his lip in excitement, his eyes crinkle at the corners as his smile escapes into the rest of his face.

 

He shakes his hand slightly.

 

“Steven, I don’t--”

 

“Go on, take it!” he insists, shaking his hand once more.

 

You are touched, but also wary. You wonder what on Earth it could be this time. You hope it isn’t something dirty. Or greasy. Or sticky. (...It’s probably something sticky.)

 

You raise your hand, and something small falls into it. It’s lumpy and dull. It is imperfect.

 

“It’s a pearl!” Steven shouts, flapping his hands like a preening bird. His eyes shine like stars. “Just like you! Isn’t it great?”

 

~*~

 

All Gems are grown--well, replicated and seeded, one could say. Rose once tried to explain it to Greg, but it’s all very difficult for Organics to understand, simple though it is. You take the Gangue and the correct Aggregate and the Spark, and with time and sometimes pressure, you have a Gem. Without all three, however, all you have is useless ore surrounding the promise of something precious. Aggregate is easy, any planet will do. But for the Spark, you need Organics. Oh, they don’t have to be complex. Just numerous. Most planets could be stripped bare and support creating only a handful of Gems.

 

There was a way of course to produce gems back on Homeworld, if they were needed to be intelligent without being smart, and obedient without asking questions.  Just collect the soupy Organic mess from less evolved planets, throw it in the Vat and layer by layer build the pearls so they could fly the ships, manage the records, and serve the true gems. Pearls all came from the same Vat. They had the same mind, the same purpose.  

 

Sometimes you still wonder where in the Vat you went wrong--

 

_“I asked for data, not your opinion!”_

_“Yes and, well, if you look here you can see that’s all been coordinated, but if you look **here** , I’ve also calculated some strategies and the possible outcomes based on the data that posits scenarios that will result in the least loss of Gem life. I just thought--”_

_“You **thought.** ”_

_“It’s all very scientific and based in--”_

_“A Pearl **thought** it could advise us on how to plan an infiltration? Of all the--”_

_“I want to hear what she has to say.”_

\--And why Rose Quartz listened to you anyway.

 

Rose.

 

He is eleven when you discover Rose lied to you.

 

Your remember one night. You had gone looking for Rose, and found her under her favorite tree with Greg. He was still just ‘the human’ to you then. You weren’t jealous. He was only a human, he would be gone soon enough. What did one human have against your thousands of years together?

 

Their backs were too you, so they didn’t notice you as you approached.

 

“--terrible! Rose, but, what if these Diamond people come _back_?” His voice was shrill with panic.

 

“Greg, Greg, sweetie, that’s...that’s just not going to happen,” she promised. And she was lying. Back then you knew when Rose was lying, and this was a soft lie, one told to a human so they would sleep at night. _‘Poor human_ ’, you thought then. It was unlikely Homeworld Gems would ever return, but it wasn’t impossible. If you, the Crystal Gems, completed your sworn oath, they might never return. If Homeworld forgot about the Earth after all this time, they might never return. Poor human. She had to lie to you, and give you the comfort of an absolute.    

 

But it hadn’t been a lie. A _lie_ was that the Gems weren’t cruel. How could a mountain be cruel, or a rock have feelings? A lie was that empathy was something sentient Organics were saddled with. A lie was something told for eons so that a planet of conquerors molded and selected and created for a single purpose might never question the horror of their actions when the harvest was no longer plants and simple-celled organisms.

 

But she hid something from you, and isn’t that in a way worse? You, who had known the mind of Rose Quartz intimately, who had nothing to hide in turn, and she hid something from you.

 

Because now you realize you’ve been holding something back from the others as well. Something dark and awful that shakes you to your core. Even after Steven hugs you and leads to back to the Temple, that dark awful thing inside of you still terrifies you.

 

Because when he fell short in his leap, the thought was there, wasn’t it? Because there was so little known, so much yet untested. Steven had never been truly damaged before, but was it from his own healing ability, or inhumanely good luck? And what would happen on the day he was? Would he heal in an eye’s blink? Would there be damage even a Gem couldn’t survive? Or would he grow impossibly old for a human, and one day just die? And what would happen then? Would he be absorbed into his gem, resting, rejuvenating? Would he even return? Would--

 

Would she return instead, in his place?

 

That’s why you ran. Rose, after all, saw the best in everything. Everything. What she would think if she could see you now?

 

~*~

 

He is twelve when you find Peridot again.

  
"I was the improvement!" Peridot screams, found twisted and broken and dangerously out of control. You don’t know how she evaded you for so long in the shape she’s in. Garnet and Amethyst are still trying to fight off the crude but effective robots she was able to build from human technology, and she has you and Steven pinned behind a rock. She is single-minded in her rage.

 

If you were to posit why, you would suppose, as one used to order and Gem civilization, she had been lulled into a false sense of safety back on the ship. Here on Earth, broken, unable to call home, she’s learned what all Organics know. What the Crystal Gems paid a terrible price to learn five thousand years ago.

 

Survival.

 

"After the rebellion they scrapped the whole Pearl program, it took them centuries to fix the mistake! Because of you!"

 

Her weapon chips another part of the boulder away. You flinch, and pull Steven closer.   
  


“Pearl, I need to get close to her!” Steven says.

 

“Steven, no!”

 

“Her gem is cracked, she’s getting worse! Pearl I can fix her!”

 

 _‘Let her break,’_ you want to say.

 

“Pearl, please,” stops you.

 

_“Pearl! Garnet! To me!”_

_“Their gems are cracked, we need to carry them--”_

_““Garnet, Pearl, please!”_

_“Rose we can--”_

 

_“They’re firing the--”_

 

You dance just out of her weapon’s aim, trying to keep her focus on you. Peridot is not crying. But her face is twisted into something that is painful to look at for too long. She’s becoming sharper while also losing her shape. "I was the improvement!” she says again. “You stupid Crystal Gems broke everything I had to fix I had I almost did I stupid planet you you youyouyouyouyou--”

 

She’s collapsing, failing. You wonder how much longer--

 

“bRokEmystUffffff---”

 

Steven makes the leap. His aim is true.

 

Later, sitting in the bubble, after accounting for all her limbs and finding them in working order, she gives Steven a suspicious look. “Why?” is all she asks.

 

“You were hurting. I thought maybe if you weren’t hurting...we could talk.”

  
~*~

 

It is a terrible idea. Even with restrictions within the temple, Peridot is...well, you don’t want to say she’s _smarter_ than you, but you have been isolated from five thousand years of Gem technological advancement, and you are terrified she might have tricks up her sleeves you have no idea how to anticipate, but you can’t just let her GO, and her fascination with Steven after he healed her is terrifying, like she’s wondering how to...dissect him. So, you can’t let her go, but you don’t trust her in the Temple, but you don’t trust her around Steven.

 

You just don’t know what to _do_ anymore.

 

“Pearl?”

 

“Steven! What are you doing up?” He opens the screen door to join you outside. The wind coming from the ocean is cool, and you eye his pajamas. “Those are of an unsatisfactory material for this temperature and wind chill--”

 

“Pearl. I was wondering,” he starts, slow and unsure.  

 

“Yes, Steven?”

 

“Well...I mean...so there were like, a lot of you?” He grimaces and rubs his face. “I’m sorry, it’s not--”

 

Oh.

  
“Pearls were legion, Steven,” you begin, "We were assigned commanders and missions, we managed all the centers and the towers. Pearls were...we were like computers, really.”

 

It's another breath before he speaks, the wonder pouring out of his eyes, sparkling in his voice. "That's why you’re so smart.”

 

“No, Steven. I mean, yes, we were made to be smart but, we weren’t supposed to think, we were just suppose to--besides, Peridot was right. There was something wrong with me. I don’t know when I went all wrong but I didn’t know any better, not at first. And then I was chosen by your mother--we’ve been on this on this planet, cut off from Homeworld for so long, I didn’t know I was the last one.”

 

The silence is overwhelming. You will not look. You can't bear to see the look on his face. You were just the ancient equivocate of the smartphone in Stevens pocket. A device to be used until broken.  
  
You can't look. You won't look.

 

“You _weren’t_ wrong! They were wrong! Homeworld was wrong! I’m glad mom chose you. I’m glad you ended up here. I’m glad you're my Pearl.”

 

You look.

 

There’s a fire in his eyes that makes you feel both foolish and invincible. You search his face, looking for either the cunning that meant to use those exact words, or the possibility that--

 

And once again, you think just how much he sounds like her sometimes.

 

“This calls for a proper midnight cheering up--”

 

“Steven, it’s only nine p.m.”

 

_“--Steven style!”_

 

Sometimes.

 

~*~

 

There is an old human saying you find absolutely disgusting. ‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.’ You placed a long standing ban on dogs in the temple for that proverb alone.

 

He is thirteen when the Diamonds return.

 

There is no where to hide but in the Temple, but it will not hold for much longer. It shakes and groans with each weapon’s fire. Eventually the door will give, or they will punch a hole through the cliff itself.

 

“You have to let me out! We have to get off planet!” Peridot screams.

 

“And where do you think we can go? We know Homeworld Gems are guarding the warp pads,” Garnet says. Her voice is heavy, but soft. There is no need to yell when the truth is loud enough.

 

Peridot is shaking with fear. “They are going to kill us all!” she cries.

 

“Not without a fight. We may die, but we will not make our deaths an easy one,” Garnet declares, but not in defiance. It is merely a fact.

 

Another BOOM, closer and even harder. Steven falls to the ground, hitting his chin.

 

“Steven! Oh Steven, are you hurt?” you ask before the absurdity of asking hits you. You are all going to die in this place, Steven as well.

 

The tears are falling down your face before you feel them.

 

“WHERE ARE YOU, CRYSTAL GEMS?”

 

“They got in!” Amethyst gasps. Her eyes are wide.

 

She looks so small. Steven look so small.

 

You are all so very, very small, and few.

 

“Gems, we need to fuse now!” Garnet orders, but you’re already so battered and worn--

 

You try to clear the salt water from your eyes. Perhaps you were all fools to think you could defy the Homeworld and be left in peace. Perhaps you were so busy looking through Rose’s eyes you forget the reality of what you were and what you came from. The same war. The same cause. The same dangers. Nothing has changed. Except--

 

“Dude, what are you doing?” Amethyst suddenly says, and you turn to see Steven frantically collecting and popping bubbles. “Steven, stop, Yellow Diamond will be bad enough we don’t need to get it from both sides!”

 

And that’s when you discover Steven can refuse a broken gem after all.

 

~*~

 

You win, but now you have an army of refused Gems in the wreckage of the Temple. Some of whom need to be refused again, if Steven can figure out how he figured it out in the first place.

 

“The logistics of accounting for everyone is going to be a _nightmare_ ,” Peridot sighs.

 

Combing the wreckage for long forgotten faces, both friend and foe, you have to agree with her.

 

You don’t know how you feel about that.

 

~*~

 

It is the New Age of Earth Gems. Steven insists that they are all Earth Gems now. He has to raise his shirt more than once to convince the still wary.

 

Some flee in the chaos, you don’t know where to. But most of the revived decide to stay on Earth. That Rose Quartz still lives, albeit in Steven, is enough for most who were tortured and broken by the last war. To be whole is to be free, so they stay. Even Peridot stays on Earth, though she sneers at how unscientific ancient Gem magic is. She’s certain that with a handful of Gems and the ‘proper’ Gem technology she salvaged she can reclaim the Lunar Sea Spire. You still don’t know if you trust her, but you suspect she too has fallen under Steven’s spell.  

 

Years go by, but Steven doesn’t necessarily grow older.

 

Oh, he settles into his duality. Beach City recovers from the war, and as years go by Steven never really holds down a real job, but has a hand in dozens of community projects, great and small. His favorite is the take-a-book-leave-a-bookmobile he makes out of tool shed and a small trailer that he drags around on his bicycle.  He even runs for Mayor and wins, but only lasts a term. He couldn’t do enough, he claims.

 

But his emotions are too strong. Sometimes it’s a man that comes on missions, a small giant that can lift a boulder with both hands or cradle a kitten dwarfed by his palm. But sometimes when he’s playing with his children, and later, his grandchildren, he’s a child again.

 

The children think it’s the funniest thing that even he’s not quite sure how it works.

 

Humans that are loved by Steven live unusually long, healthy lives. But in the end, they pass as well. Each death brings Steven low, aging him in his grief. Before Steven, you just protected humans but you didn’t know any. You’ve been on the Earth for more than six thousand years, but you’ve only really learned anything of worth in the last few hundred. You can interpret human nuance now that you missed before. You’ve learned what can hurt even if you thought you were being sensible. Sometimes you even enjoy a slice of pie. These are ethereal things, data points you never could have gathered on your own. You had to experience them. You had to be taught them. And where Rose tried, Steven succeeded.

 

All it took was Love.

 

Rose Quartz gave her life so he could exist, but what Steven is, what Steven has given you is priceless. When you see another human he loves begin to grow grey, you realize you don’t want Rose Quartz back, not yet.

 

Not yet.

 

He gives a short laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck. He looks embarrassed. It's endearing.

 

“I must've drove you crazy,” he says. “I don't know how you put up with me.”

 

“Oh Stephen,” you say putting your hand on his shoulder. “You were a child. And you were--”

 

When he was a child your pause would have worried him.  His eyes would have grown wide, his lip might even have wibbled. But he's grown up since then but only in the ways that matter. He's been smoothed and tempered and weathered. He’s grown even more into his kindness and goodness and light. It could either blind you or you could reflect the glow.

 

And so you glow.

 

"--Perfect."

  
  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I started this right after Steven Bomb, and have been trying to get my thoughts in order and just get this posted before more Steven Universe is released and then my headcanon gets all blown out of the water. DEFINITELY started writing before I watched Political Power, Joy Ride, etc. but still only playing with canon up to Story for Steven. Also, second person flipping between past and present tense--does that even work? I don't know anymore, I've been staring at this fic for WEEKS willing to to get it's shit together. I hope you've enjoyed!


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